Tlatelolco
The ruins of Tlatelolco are not adjacent to the Great Temple, but as a standing ruin it should be included on this page. Tlatelolco was formerly an enormous marketplace in Tenochtitlan, very close to the central religious district where the Great Temple stood. From one of the tallest buildings in Tlatelolco, an Aztec economic minister would declare buying and selling rates for goods every morning. Fruits, livestock, slaves, jewelry, clothing and pottery were among the multitude of items sold across this mercantile district. TL
This small, round temple had originally belonged to the central plaza of Tenochtitlan, where it housed the altar for the Wind God Ehecatl. Much of this temple was actually excavated during construction of a subway tunnel, and it is still the central feature of the Pino Suarez subway station. Its circular peak is a typical feature of the Wind Temples. At its base are year-glyphs that likely designate the time of its commission. PS
These bearers are displayed where they were discovered along a stairway of the Great Temple's Phase III construction. This dates them from approximately 1431 A.D., when Itzcoatl was emperor. Hewn from single slabs of igneous stone, they would have stood to hold tall flags in their grasping hands during ceremonies. GT
A masterpiece of Aztec stonework. Almost three feet long, this monolithic work shows an elegant lining to its shell. The conch was a symbol of life; according to one myth, human life was conceived by Quetzalcoatl's divine act of boring into a conch. This is one of the reasons Quetzalcoatl/Ehecatl often wears a conch segment as his pectoral. As both a life symbol and an aquatic creature this was very fittingly placed in Tlaloc's half of the Great Temple. As the chief Rain Lord, Tlaloc promised water and life, whereas the War God Huitzilopochtli promoted victory and death. These two gods together embodied the fundamental qualities of the Aztec's life in his empire. GT
Just as the military élite were divided into the Eagle Warriors of the day and the Jaguar Warriors of the night, this eagle bowl is the companion to the jaguar bowl displayed at the NMAH. Each bowl has a shallow receptacle on its back for receiving sacrificial hearts. When human sacrifice was recognized as a valuable way to show political might, its use multiplied. On one recorded day, around eight hundred people, mostly prisoners of battle, were sacrificed in the empire's capital at Tenochtitlan (.WAV). GT
The eagles were the birds that carried the sun, the source of all sustenance, from the underworld into the morning sky. For that respect, the eagle represented the power of day, so it became the garb for the most prestigious warriors who fought by day. The terracotta eagle-warrior sculpture is nearly life-size, and not surprisingly it was unearthed from the War God Huitzilopochtli's half of the Great Temple. GT
As the empire flaunted its power, the remnants of the sacrifice were just as important as the rite itself. At the Zocalo in Tenochtitlan, the sacrifices' skulls were posted along long series of racks called tzompantli (.WAV). More durable altars were carved from monolithic stone, some to the size of walls. This is a close-up from one of those stone walls. GT
Tezcatlipoca (.WAV), the Smoking Mirror could be considered the antithesis of Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent. What the Feathered Serpent stood for in life, in love, and in luminosity, the Smoking Mirror reversed as the god of night, of darkness, and of deception. This was Yaotl - the Enemy, the one who obscured a man's reflections if he were to gaze into the smoking mirror of obsidian. In this mural reproduction from the Codex Borgia, Tezcatlipoca carries symbols of the twenty days of the month. (Those around his feet are in the image on the left.) Paradoxically, however, Tezcatlipoca was also known for his ability to guide rulers by the light of his torch, and he was profoundly associated with legitimate rulership. To make matters more confusing (but interesting), Quetzalcoatl was occasionally referred to as the White Tezcatlipoca. GT
This clay urn shows Tezcatlipoca holding a pair of darts in one hand and a spear-thrower, or atlatl in his other. Two distinctions mark this god as the Smoking Mirror: the bands streaked across his face and the exposed bone where his foot should be. That is all that remains after the great earth beast Cipactli bit his foot off, and thereafter it became a mirror. Inside this container, a small necklace of obsidian duck heads and cremated bones have been discovered. The bones likely belonged to the emperor Tizoc, now returned to the temple of Huitzilopochtli. GT
Since the Toltecs' era, the chac-mool served as a vessel from man to the gods. It was believed to deliver the sacrificial heart to the gods in the heavens. While the Aztecs used such large bowls like the aforementioned eagle and jaguar bowls, they also employed the more traditional chac-mool for the same purpose. GT
Since almost the very inception of the Aztecs' central temple in the island of Tenochtitlan, there has been a chac-mool to receive their offerings. This wonderfully preserved chac-mool still retains much of its original coloration. It has been dated to either 1350 or to Phase II of the Teocalli's construction, between 1375 and 1427 CE. It is perhaps the oldest known Mexica artifact at the Teocalli. GT
The instruments of sacrifice. This is most clear by the bits of shell and stone embedded along the sides of the knife, to represent the faces of the gods to whom the sacrificial hearts were offered. Each knife, better known as a tecpatl (.WAV), is sharpened from a single piece of stone, usually flint or silex, and set in a base of copal incense. These were the deadliest works of art in Mesoamerica. GT
Over 200 separate pieces of carved mother-of-pearl, golden beads, and greenstone beads were put into this extraordinarily elaborate necklace. From the sacredness of the shell as mentioned above, this necklace took on a value that can even be appreciated from a secular perspective. GT
Yes, this was made from a human skull. The shell and pyrite insets into the sockets must bring some life back into this skull, but the tecpatl pushed into the nasal cavity has been suggested to cut off the human's vital breath. Several holes were perforated into the upper rim, either to hold small items like feathers or to run the string which would have enabled a priest to wear this as a mask. GT
